BLM-CO Northwest Colorado Forestry Good Neighbor Project

During the past several years, the Bureau of Land Management Colorado (BLM-CO) Kremmling foresters have been working cooperatively on projects with the Colorado State Forest Service (CSFS). Recently the focus has been on bark beetle killed trees within the BLM Northwest District. The Northwest District Office has thousands of acres of BLM tracts affected by the Mountain Pine Beetle. The CSFS has assisted numerous times with providing access to these isolated BLM parcels by communication with the private landowners. The CSFS has oftentimes assisted with finding and locating land survey monuments that separate the private and public lands. The CSFS has expressed interest in assisting with the sale layout and timber cruising on public lands. The BLM has completed several NEPA documents for BLM parcels that require adjacent landowner access in order to implement forest management treatments. The CSFS has been crucial in many instances for providing collaboration with the landowners and gaining access for contractors. Potentially dangerous forest conditions have developed due to a complicated mixture of past mandated have limited or precluded timber harvest and/or the use of prescribed fire, loss of forest industry, increasingly stringent air regulations that limit the use of prescribed fire, agency policies and regulations. Additionally, the increased land development of Colorado's forested land in the wildland urban interface has also contributed to this problem. Development often creates conditions that may actually increase the hazards and risks of insects, disease and fires. In these urbanized forests there is an increasing demand that something be done. Allowing natural processes within these forested watersheds to begin operating at full scale is not an option. To begin restoring and protecting Colorado's watersheds, the U.S. Congress passed legislation which authorizes the BLM to allow the CSFS to perform watershed restoration, forest health and fuels reduction services on BLM lands in the State of Colorado when similar and complementary services are being performed on adjacent state or private lands. This cross boundary management fits with the implementation of the National Fire Plan (NFP) and is reflected in this agreement.